


I'll Darn You Back Together

by trekkiepirate



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Bottled Appetites rewrite, Chireadan has had a very weird day, Jaskier's bum bow, M/M, basically Jaskier loses it when he thinks Geralt is dead, how many fics can I sneak The Amazing Devil lyrics into the answer may surprise you, mentioned Yennefer/Chireadan because they deserve it for helping Jaskier be not dead, no Yennefer hate here, we're gonna wave a hand and say there's a concept of angels and demons and hell in The Witcher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:14:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24596587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trekkiepirate/pseuds/trekkiepirate
Summary: Jaskier had taken a breath and was wailing again. Geralt’s ears rang at the sound. He’d heard the bard sick and terrified and, just recently, in deathly amounts of pain, but this sound? This was a sound he would move mountains to never hear again from the other man. This was a sound that carried the smell of all someone’s worst fears coming true. It was the most hopeless thing he’d ever heard and the fact that Jaskier, normally so bright and (beautifully) full of light was making it?Geralt didn’t know what he would find, but he would kill with his bare hands whatever was causing that sound from Jaskier’s so recently abused throat.A Bottled Appetites rewrite.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, brief Geralt/Yennefer
Comments: 37
Kudos: 385





	I'll Darn You Back Together

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I will write a short fic about Jaskier losing his mind when he thinks Geralt is dead and Geralt being like, "I'm not dead" and then they bang, simple as that.
> 
> The Fic: Bitch you thought.

Geralt and Yennefer looked at each other once their words ran out and came together like a wave crashing onto the shore. Geralt was just lowering himself on top of her, when he heard it.

A scream. Jaskier’s scream. So full of… something horrible that Geralt sat up at once.

He was twisting off Yennefer before the scream even ended. Up on his feet, Geralt turned to Yennefer, “You said he’d be fine. He’s supposed to be all right now.”

Yennefer was saying something about how if his voice was still damaged, he surely wouldn’t be able to make that kind of caterwauling, but Geralt barely heard it as he rushed through the house, trying to find the front door.

Jaskier had taken a breath and was wailing again. Geralt’s ears rang at the sound. He’d heard the bard sick and terrified and, just recently, in deathly amounts of pain, but this sound? This was a sound he would move mountains to never hear again from the other man. This was a sound that carried the smell of all someone’s worst fears coming true. It was the most hopeless thing he’d ever heard and the fact that Jaskier, normally so bright and (beautifully) full of light was making it?

Geralt didn’t know what he would find, but he would kill with his bare hands whatever was causing that sound from Jaskier’s so recently abused throat.

He rounded to the doorway and saw Jaskier kneeling on the ground, doubled over himself. He was bent so low that his tears were turning the dirt beneath him to mud.

The elf, Chireadan, had a hand on his back and Geralt’s palms itched for his sword’s hilt. But the healer was clearly trying to soothe, not inflict pain.

“He’s gone,” Jaskier said, words ragged with anguish. He sounded destroyed and Geralt wondered for a moment who the ‘he’ Jaskier spoke of was before he realized that from the outside, all they had seen was the collapse of the tower.

“What am I supposed to do now? It wasn’t supposed to go this way!” This grief came tinged with anger, big enough for the whole sorry world. Jaskier took a shaken breath and heaved with more sobs. “I never – we never- he never-“

Chireadan, for his part, was still trying to calm the bard. “It was probably a quick end. No suffering.”

That did fuck all to calm the man howling his rage and grief into the dirt.

“You can write a new song. All about your life together. Who he was, what you saw.”

Geralt was about to move forward when Chireadan continued.

“How deeply you loved each other.”

Jaskier laughed, mirthless and so bitter Geralt could all but taste it. “If Geralt,” his name was a choked off sound, “ever knew how in love with him I am, he’d have abandoned me in the next town at best and run me through with his sword at worst.”

Geralt took a moment to rearrange his world, knocked off kilter by Jaskier’s words. He knew the man had lusted for him. He could smell arousal after all. Besides, Jaskier often fell at least a little in love with every person he found attractive. Geralt assumed that was all it was. But real love? The kind of which could bring such pain at the perceived loss of it? That was news to Geralt.

News that he found himself being at peace with. Even happy about. It made sense why he had fought so hard to save the bard but still couldn’t find it in himself to call Jaskier his friend. Friend seemed so… little a word when it came to all Jaskier meant to him. The safety of being understood and known. Yes, he could be the most annoying person on the Continent, but Geralt would rather be annoyed at Jaskier’s side than happy anywhere else. He wasn’t even sure he could be happy if he wasn’t at Jaskier’s side. He sure hadn’t been since Jaskier elected to stay behind with the Countess a few years back.

But the second Geralt had seen Jaskier in peril, he was consumed by the need to keep the man with him always. Keep him safe. Keep him close. Squabble with him on riverbanks and tell him when the lyrics he was trying out were trite and… and hold him close. As close as skin. And never, ever be the reason Jaskier was as miserable as he was now.

Geralt took a step forward, not hiding his smile this time. “Jaskier.”

The man’s head snapped up so sharply Geralt worried he might break his own neck. Jaskier scrambled to his feet, mouth open. He staggered one, two steps towards Geralt. Jaskier stared for a moment, then seemed to relax, all tension shuddering from his body. “Oh. I’m dead.”

Geralt frowned, but Jaskier didn’t seem to notice.

“I died of a broken heart. Wasn’t entirely sure it was possible. Oh, I would have written such an epic ballad about this,” he approached Geralt, looking him over. “Beautiful as the shape you’re stealing is, I know you cannot be an angel. I don’t delude myself that the kind of life I led garners me an escort from one of those.” He held his arms out, like he had minutes ago when asking Geralt if he was short of a marble for going back in to save Yennefer.

“So here we are,” Jaskier smiled and Geralt feel his heart kick in his chest. Had he truly never noticed how beautiful Jaskier was? No, he knew, but he wouldn’t let himself go down the way those thoughts wanted to lead him.

Well if today had taught him nothing else, Geralt now knew that he would do or say or give anything possible to see Jaskier safe and unharmed and happy. He just had to communicate that to Jaskier, who was still prattling on about how he would have written such a sweeping song about this.

Jaskier came close to Geralt and the Witcher didn’t resist the urge to cup Jaskier’s face in his hands, thumb rubbing at a bit of dried blood still on his jaw.

“Oh,” Jaskier said, his heart quickening in his chest, “oh you are definitely a demon. Geralt, the real Geralt that is, would never touch me like this.” He nuzzled into Geralt’s palm. “But well played because I will now gladly follow you to where all hell and its fire waits for us.”

“How are you still alive?”

Jaskier and Geralt turned as one to where Chireadan stood, shocked at all he’d just witnessed. “We watched the entire tower roof just fall down on you and yet you’re standing here, barely battered.”

“Yennefer created a portal for us to fall through. Brought us down to the ground floor.”

Jaskier took several steps back and looked between Chireadan and Geralt. “I’m sorry, you can see him as well? Did you die too? And why is my Geralt who you see to guide you to the afterlife?”

Geralt preened a bit at the thought of being Jaskier’s. “I’m not dead.”

Jaskier blinked, then looked at Geralt as if he were simple. “Well no, the real Geralt is dead and you are a demon who picked the shape of the man I love most so I would follow him into hell. Which I have already resigned myself to. So, you know, on with the guiding.”

Shaking his head, Geralt stepped closer, pleased when Jaskier stood his ground. “I’m your Geralt,” he enjoyed the little gasp Jaskier probably wasn’t even aware he was making, “I’m alive and so are you, Jaskier.”

“But no see you, you, you,” he held a hand to his cheek, “you touched me like-“

“Like you’re precious? Something I want to hold close and keep safe? Because you are, Jaskier. I have learned that lesson only too well. Did today not show you that?”

Jaskier put his hands on his hips, then spread them, then put them back on his hips. “I am clearly dead or still dreaming. No gorgeous evil witch woke me up, I’m still lying somewhere with you, the real you, either digging my grave or giving the witch all our coin and your soul besides to pay for fixing me.”

Geralt frowned. This was not as easy as he had expected it to be. “How can I prove to you that you’re awake and we’re both alive?”

“By your leave,” Chireadan had clearly had enough of them judging by the sigh in his words, “I am going home. It has been a very bizarre day.” He headed away from them.

Geralt thought of something. “Apple juice,” he said, nodding towards the house. “Yennefer is probably still digging through rubble for her things.” He strained his ears and could hear her doing just that. “I think you should bring her some apple juice. Tell her I sent you; she won’t harm you, I swear.” He hoped. He had made a rather abrupt exit. Perhaps she’d forgive him if the elf satisfied her instead.

Chireadan looked unsure then shrugged, mind made up. “This seems to be a day for miracles.”

He passed between Jaskier and Geralt to head into the house.

Jaskier was staring at Geralt. “I’m sorry but he’s right about the bizarre thing. Nothing is making sense anymore.”

Geralt hmmed in his throat, debating how to explain it all.

Jaskier went stock still. “Geralt? That’s, that’s you! That’s the hmm you make when you’re thinking something through.”

It was warming (and not a little bit frightening) to see that Jaskier knew him well enough to decipher even his most inarticulate expressions.

Jaskier approached him as one would a rabbit you needed for dinner, like Geralt might run at any moment and leave him empty inside. “What is going on, Geralt?” he asked once he was close, closer than they usually stood. And even that was nearer than most friends Geralt had observed would be to each other.

“I have been a fool. A,” he searched about in his memories, “crochety and cantankerous old fool. I nearly lost you, Jaskier,” he leaned forward to press their foreheads together, “and it only made me realize that you are the one thing I never, ever want to lose. Especially to my own thoughtless wish.”

“Your wish?” Jaskier said, pulling back to look at Geralt.

He didn’t know; he hadn’t been there for Geralt’s revelation.

“The djinn granted my wishes, not yours.”

Jaskier’s face twisted in confusion. “But I made my wish to get away from the scary witch and I got away safely. That was my last wish. When did you even wish for anything anyway? Did you have a nap at some point?”

Geralt raised a hand and laid it gently on Jaskier’s shoulder, thumb brushing his neck, feeling the shiver that went through Jaskier’s body. “When I wished for peace, the djinn attacked you.”

Jaskier startled back, hand rising to his throat. “Oh,” was all he said.

“I’m so sorry, Jaskier,” Geralt said. “I never would have done it if I’d known how it would hurt you. You can be irritating,” even his newly surfaced feelings weren’t going to paint Jaskier as perfect, he knew him too well for that, “but it nearly killed you. It would have. Because I just wanted you to stop babbling on.”

Jaskier tilted his head. “This means Valdo Marx must still be alive, then? Pity. Then again, maybe an apoplectic death is too gentle and quick for him.”

Geralt had no context, but he decided it probably was, if Jaskier hated him so. “Also means the Countess won’t be welcoming you back.”

“Probably for the best, we weren’t particularly good at being together, to be frank. I tried to give monogamy an honest go and she did fuck no less than fifteen other men before she found the one she liked better than me,” Jaskier said. “Didn’t even bother to ask if I wanted to join in.” He looked at Geralt. “I, uh, also don’t find myself wanting back into her good graces anymore. Not if there’s a,” he licked his lips, less seduction than betrayal of nerves, “a better offer out there.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jaskier said. “Not for any of it. Not if it means I can do,” he lifted his hand and haltingly placed it against Geralt’s cheek, “do this.”

Geralt nodded. “You can do more than that.”

Jaskier searched Geralt’s face and seemed to find what he needed because before his next breath he was kissing Geralt, hard, desperate, like he’d be rejected at any second and wanted this to last as long as possible until it did.

Using his hand on Jaskier’s neck, he tilted the man to get a better angle for deepening the kiss. He also gentled it, tried to let Jaskier know it was welcome and there was no urgency needed.

When Jaskier succumbed he all but fell into Geralt, who stumbled back a couple steps at his sudden weight, bracing himself against the stone wall. “I thought I lost you,” he breathed in Geralt’s mouth, a sob shuddering through the kiss.

“I almost did lose you,” Geralt replied, gripping him tighter. 

“Now,” Jaskier said between nipping kisses,” you really do have to take it back about my fillingless pie.”

Geralt hmmed, knowing Jaskier would understand it was the one he made when pretending to be annoyed at the bard. “If I do how many crude jokes will you make about filling something else?”

“All of them,” Jaskier’s grin was unrepentant and it looked even better on kiss-plump lips.

Geralt’s hand began to descend, tracing along Jaskier’s collar. “Do you know what you looked like when you showed up today? I couldn’t allow myself to look at you too long. Your doublet open, this,” he plucked at the shirt Jaskier wore, “edged in lace and see through. If you hadn’t stunk of booze and I hadn’t been so intent on finding the blasted djinn, I’d have had you up against a tree like the teasing whore you looked like.”

Jaskier’s hips rocked forward, “Will this wall do? It looks a very sturdy wall. Truly, a most excellent and recommended wall.”

Geralt considered it, then remembered the pillows in the room he’d be in with Yennefer. “Not this time. I want to have you properly the first time.”

“Say more things like that and I’ll be forced to believe it’s a dream again.”

“Does this feel like a dream?” Geralt said, rocking their hips together.

“Like all my favourite ones, yes.”

Geralt laid a hand over Jaskier’s and dragged it down until it his palm pressed against Geralt’s heart.

He placed his own hand over Jaskier’s chest.

It took three of Jaskier’s rabbiting heartbeats for one of Geralt’s but Jaskier smiled up at him. “We’re alive and we’re here and this is happening.”

“It is.”

“Fuck,” Jaskier said, going back in for more kissing.

With some difficulty, Jaskier was a very skilled kisser and also his hands managed to be everywhere at once, Geralt led them back through the house to the pillows and bore Jaskier down onto them just as he had with Yennefer not long ago.

Geralt very wisely did not mention that fact to Jaskier.

Their positions lasted for about two seconds, before with a strong twist of his hips that Geralt was going to fucking dream about for the rest of his life, Jaskier had flipped them, sitting astride Geralt.

“You haven’t slept in days,” Jaskier said, his shirt already across the room and Geralt’s next. “I’m doing all the work here. You wouldn’t want to waste my little gift for you.”

Geralt eyed Jaskier’s crotch. “It doesn’t look little from here, but you would know.”

“I promise to be very offended about that when I’m less desperate to get access to your cock,” Jaskier said. Then he grinned and took Geralt’s hand, guiding it over his cloth-covered arse.

“Yes, you have a very nice,” Geralt stopped as his fingers hit something. He traced the shape of it as Jaskier ran his tongue across his lips, this move nothing but calculated seduction.

“Jaskier? Is that a fucking bow on your arse?”

“That is precisely what it is, my dearest Witcher.” He leaned down and kissed Geralt’s ear, whispering, “I knew exactly what I looked like.”

Geralt hooked his finger in a loop. “How did you know I would like it?”

Jaskier nipped at Geralt’s neck as he inched himself back to sitting upright. “Hope, my dearest Witcher, is the thing with feathers.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“No idea,” Jaskier shrugged as he wriggled over Geralt’s lap in the most distracting way. “Heard a scribe say it once. Sounded poetic. Are you just going to finger the bow or are you going to undo it?” Geralt grinned and as he opened his mouth, Jaskier dipped to press his own against it. “No, I heard myself soon as I said it. Less talking, more fucking.”

Geralt growled low in his throat and yanked the bow apart with one rough tug. He’s sure he heard some stitches go to and hopes that escaped Jaskier’s notice. Grabbing Jaskier’s hips, he helped the bard work his and then Geralt’s trousers out of the way. Now naked, Geralt couldn’t resist running his hands everywhere on Jaskier. Through the soft thatch of dark hair on his chest to his thighs, strong and toned from years of following Geralt on the Path. He pressed his fingers along the v shape of Jaskier’s pelvis and smoothed down every knob of his spine.

Jaskier apparently wanted to make sure no pleasure given wasn’t returned in kind since he seemed just as determined to ensure there was no inch of the Witcher he hadn’t touched.

It was tender, the exploration. In a way Geralt’s sexual encounters rarely were. Instead of exaggerated moans, Jaskier laughed softly when Geralt stroked down his calves. 

Geralt spared a thought for Yennefer and Chireadan. He hoped they were enjoying each other. They both deserved it, for the assistance they’d given Jaskier and himself.

The thought swiftly flew away when Jaskier rolled his entire body in the sexiest way Geralt had ever seen a human move, brothels not excepted.

“By the gods, I want you in me,” Jaskier said, “but without any handy supplies-“

Geralt turned his head both ways. Surely when they’d fallen through the portals, some of Yennefer’s various jars and things had come with them. His hand landed on one and he showed it to Jaskier. “Can we use this?”

Jaskier opened it and smelled. Then he inhaled deeply again and smiled. “Should have expected no less from someone hosting an orgy.” He tilted his head. “That part? Did that happen too?”

“It did.”

Jaskier pursed his lips and tilted his head a bit more. “Huh. Looked nice enough. This,” he tossed the lid uncaringly over his shoulder, “is actually perfect for what we want.” He looked at Geralt from under his eyelashes as if Geralt believed he had a shred of coyness left in his body. “Do you want to handle it or do you want to watch me do it?”

Geralt’s brain bounced the visuals back and forth for a moment before Jaskier laughed.

“Don’t strain yourself, love,” he smiled as if getting to call Geralt love was the highlight of his life. “I’ll take care of it.” With no ceremony he dipped his fingers and scooped out a generous amount of the oil, hand going behind himself and a look of bliss crossing his face.

Geralt wrapped his arms around Jaskier’s waist and shifted so that he was sitting up, watching Jaskier’s hand move inside himself. He pressed kisses to Jaskier’s shoulders and neck, hoping they were communicating to the man how beautiful Geralt thought he was, how much he wanted him.

If they weren’t the state of Geralt’s cock when Jaskier was finally ready to take it certainly did.

“Every time I snuck a look in the bath has prepared me for this,” Jaskier quipped, pressing a hand to Geralt’s shoulder until the Witcher lay beneath him again.

“You were never as subtle as you thought you were.”

“You knew?” Jaskier raised an eyebrow as he sunk down on Geralt’s cock.

They both groaned and Geralt had to keep the thread of the conversation, so he didn’t just buck up into Jaskier’s tight heat like a wild animal. “I didn’t know,” Geralt took a deep breath as Jaskier began to slowly move, “it was love. More than the kind you seem to have for everyone who looks at you.”

Jaskier wiggled his hips in a way that had Geralt biting his lip to not shout. “Then I was just as subtle as I thought I needed to be.” He ran a hand through Geralt’s hair and neither cared when it got caught in a tangle. “Fifteen years I have adored you, Geralt. Well, I wanted you and admired you instantly, but it’s been fifteen years since I was sure it was love. I expected to go on, pining quietly and uselessly, for the rest of my days. I’m glad I don’t have to.” He looked down at Geralt, sunlight through the windows catching the sweat on his skin and reflecting in his cornflower blue eyes.

Geralt raised a hand and caressed Jaskier’s cheek with his thumb, overwhelmed by such unfamiliar sweetness that he had to express it somehow. “I thought if I had you and I lost you, to another Countess or an angry cuckold or a monster I wasn’t fast enough to slay. I thought it would hurt more than I could bear. Today I realized it was going to hurt either way and why should I break both our hearts little by little. I almost lost you,” Geralt couldn’t help the growl in his words at the mere thought. “And the last thing I had said to you were insults and angry words.”

Jaskier blinked. “That wasn’t the last thing you said to me. You said many kind things to me. When I first fell, on the road, in Chireadan’s tent, even as you were helping me to the bed before the mage made me sleep. You said my name gentler than I’d ever heard,” Jaskier had adjusted his angle and his next words were lost to a series of moans for a moment. “You, fuck gods yes, you said you wouldn’t let me die. You promised her anything to help me.”

“You heard that?”

“It was an unusually quiet orgy,” Jaskier chuckled. “I think she cared more for the visual and the performance than anyone actually expressing themselves. ‘We need your help’, I heard you say that. ‘Please’, you never say please, that was nice. ‘Fix it and I’ll pay you. Whatever the price.’ Not to mention just before you went back in here, you stupid, stupid bastard.”

Geralt slid his hands up Jaskier’s back, encouraging the bard to fall against his chest. “She saved your life. Whatever else she did, she deserved a rescue for returning you to me.”

Jaskier leaned down to kiss Geralt. “I hope you know, I am going to demand far more rides on Roach in the future and you are going to indulge me because you care about me and you said so and you can’t take it back now,” he laughed.

“I love you,” Geralt said, seeing no reason not to.

Jaskier’s hid his face against Geralt’s chest. “I’m going to start thinking we’re dead again if you say things like that.”

Geralt laughed and bucked his hips sharply, earning a punched-out gasp from Jaskier, so he did it again. 

“Ohhh,” Jaskier lifted to brace himself on Geralt’s chest. “Oh fuck, we’re alive. We’re really alive, whoo,” he threw his head back with a grin.

“Fuck,” Geralt needed to see Jaskier come. Needed to know he’d been the reason for Jaskier’s ecstasy as he was earlier the reason for Jaskier’s pain.

The moments while they chased their climaxes were the quietest he had ever heard Jaskier, too far gone for more than panting gasps once Geralt reached for his cock.

Jaskier came first, barely lasting more than four pumps of Geralt’s hand. Jaskier’s blissful cries were as sweet to Geralt as his earlier wailing had been bitter. He lasted no more than a handful of thrusts before he spilled into Jaskier, grunting out his own satisfaction.

They smiled at each other as their breathing calmed, moving as one to meet for kisses that were barely more than smiles pressing against one another.

Jaskier gently lifted himself off Geralt and sacrificed an ornate throw pillow to clean the worst of the mess from them before he settled back down, guiding Geralt’s head to rest against his chest.

As Geralt slipped into a calm and heavy slumber, all he heard were Jaskier’s contented sighs and steady heartbeat. Geralt knew he would move mountains to hear those sounds for the rest of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Basically this was self-indulgent 'what if Jaskier is the one who rides Geralt into dreamland?" and I regret nothing :)


End file.
